Salam All.
I have been doing some more excercises. This time with characters in mind. My first character is a simple box. I used the NL Bend and Twist deformers to give it some agility.
The second character is Moom by Ramtin Ahmady.
I want to make it clear that this is primarily an animation excercise done to get comfy with the tools.
Please critique. I hear the only way to get better is to listen to constructive critique and not feeling bad about it :).
Box Looks Around (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/box_look_around.wmv)
Box Jumps (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/box_jumps.wmv)
Box Spin Jumps (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/box_spin_jumps.wmv)
Moom Jumps (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/moom_jump.wmv)
So please please please critique. Thanks.
~J.

diegosocart12

11-21-2006, 12:52 AM

They look pretty good for a beginning. It would be nice if you could post in quicktime so that I could scrub through the animation, in order to get a better look at it frame by frame. The twist jump is a little awkward, especially at the beginning. Without being able to scrub, I cannot pinpoint what it is exactly, although I would guess its that the anticipation at the beginning is wrong. Maybe its too quick, or twists a little the wrong direction. Again, if you could post in quicktime, that would be very helpful. Good luck with them.

dragonlair81

11-21-2006, 03:31 AM

its a good start. I think the one thing you need to tweak is your character jump is too symmetrical. Both feet take off and land at the same time. breaking up the symmetry will help.

jariullah

11-21-2006, 04:57 PM

Salam.
Thanks for the feedback. I looked into the spin jump animation and fixed it (atleast I think I did). Please look at it for me. And I am sorry I couldnt encode this one in quicktime either. I cant find how to export the maya playblast directly into quicktime file. Help needed here too. Although if you use Media Player Classic you will be able to view this file frame by frame as well. Its a really good media player as it plays every kind of file that you have the codec installed for. Quicktime, Real, Windows Media, Divx, Bink and Smacker ... you name it. If you have the codec .. it will run it ... (atleast I think it will :D ).
Anyways, here is the link to the animation.
Box Spin Jump Reconfigured (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/box_spin_jump_reconfigured.wmv)
Please tell me if its right now.
Thanks.
~J.

thehive

11-22-2006, 12:35 PM

everything looks good but the box spin , dont know i dont feel hes buildin up enough energy to get that far mabe if he torqued more an way faster then might get half the way but that distance jus seems like gravity is not affecting him much. jus my thought

lookin good

noobie

11-22-2006, 03:33 PM

yeah the symmetry on the jump needs to break plus the time in the air to the landing is too long it almost seems like he slows down in the air and kinda slowly lands on the ground becasue u have so much overshoot it doesnt quite fit with the slow landing motion..also the feets could be delay for 2-3 frames after the heels make contact with the ground to make the follow through action work better u can kinda see a little bit of it but i dunno try delaying it a few more frames to see if it looks better or not... the boxes look fine just the spin jump one. pretty much what everyone said i cant really see whats wrong either without a quicktime file cant scrub but that one just looks funny it doesnt seem to have weight to it

jariullah

11-22-2006, 07:01 PM

Salam.
Thanks for the input people. I've worked on the anims. With the spin jump I shortened the length and hieght of the jump. Also made it quicker. Loads of changes in the moom jump. See for yourself and tell me wether I've gotten it right this time. I've paid attention to drag too (i think). Please comment.
Here are the links
Box Spin 3 (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/box_spin_jumps_reconfigured_2.avi)
Moom Jump 2 (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/jump_prep_reconfigured.avi)
Thankyou.
~J.

P.S. Try media player classic (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm) people. You can play and scrub through all types of media.

noobie

11-23-2006, 03:41 AM

hmm the spin does look a better than the original version but i like ur other animations of the box the spin jump just seems to twist too much for me

the moon rig jump looks better but now if u look at the left leg as soon as it jumps till the time it begins to contact the ground again its almost in the same pose watch it in motion thats what it kinda looks like to me but then again i would need a quicktime version to see it frame by frame... PLEASE RENDER IN QUICKTIME ITS SO MUCH BETTER!!

i still think the timing for the jump is a little off maybe more just the landing portion maybe make that part a little faster to give it more impact and weight try doing "snap" animation...i think thats what its called go check out keithlango.com he explains the method better u should probably try using that for the landing i think that would give u better results but good progress!!! i tried messing around with the rig myself havent gotten much done yet dont have time.. imma try to do some cycles and maybe a sneak ehhehe for some reason animating a sneak is so much fun!!

*EDIT*

ahhaha excuse my stupidity after watching it over and over i realized what kinda jump u were going for but there seems to be a slight jitter towards the landing portion the left leg seems to stretch out but when it lands it seems to come back in too far there seems to be a quick jitter there i dunno if u can spot it but thats kinda what it looks like to me..see what other people think

jariullah

11-23-2006, 05:02 AM

Salam.
Yeah I did spot the jitter. But it was night time and I was getting tired .. so I thought .. lets see if I can get away with this :D. Seems I didnt. Thanks for the feedback. I will look into the animation. Maybe there is something I can do to fix the jitter too. Anyways .. please can you tell me how to playblast out directly into quicktime format :shrug:. Cant figure it out. In the mean time PLEASE CHECK OUT MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm). It runs all the formats and you can scrub through all of them. You'll see what you are missing :wise:.
Anyways .. I'll get back with the fixed anim and new anims hopefully.
Thanks again. Keep checking.
~J.

jariullah

12-01-2006, 06:17 PM

Salam
Sorry for the delay. I had been thinking about making an animation with a ball (with squash and stretch controls and a tail .. I downloaded it from somewhere ... cant remember where :D ).
After thinking for a few days. I drew my first storyboard. Wasnt very good but it helped. I blocked out the animation in stepped mode but it was way too big for me to handle (1100 frames). So for now I am doing small animations with the same rig. When I am confident with my control over the timing and the animation I will pick up the blocked animation where I left it and will complete it. For now I have a jump cycle. Please critique. I have paid attention to both weight and drag. Did I do it right. Please tell me soon.
Ballrig Jump Cycle (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/ballrig_jump_cycle.avi)
Thanks.
~J.

noobie

12-01-2006, 08:04 PM

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH RENDER IN QUICKTIME FORMAT!!!

well some stuff i noticed....

1) the tail lacks overlapping action
2) i dunno but i think u dont need the stop/anticipation before each jump maybe just during the initial jump but i could be wrong
3)the ball seems to slide backwards after each landing and before the take off
4) the ball doesnt seem to reach its original shape at the peak of the jump... i think this is suppose to happen i forget lol... but it seems like the balls always stretched and squash... something my instructor told me bout squash and stretch is u make the audience feel it not actually see it and in this one im seeing it more than feeling the squash and stretch

just my thoughts see what the pros think im still learning too so im right there with u

jariullah

12-02-2006, 06:49 PM

Salam.
Thanks for the feedback. I will work on the animation. The drag on the tail of the ball wasnt very good. So I did a drag excersice after doing a bit of researching. Here is the result so far. I used a skeletal chain to make the animation. Need feedback.
Drag Excercise (http://www.geocities.com/jansoft88/LearningAnimation/drag.mov)
Thanks.
~J.

noobie

12-02-2006, 07:44 PM

that looks okay theres still a slit jitter towards the end if u scroll through it ull see what i mean the ball seems to be dragging but then it goes slightly forward then back

see if u can see the image i attached i remember reading somewhere bout the drag/delay of animating something like a tail so try something like what i have in the image on ur ball i think itll turn out much nicer

a general rule of thumb on the tail drag is to keep the tip pointing in the direction its coming from i wrote this on the image too but yea..

Amit_S

12-08-2006, 12:15 PM

Hye jariullah!

Just checked all your posts (except stargate).
Nice progress :thumbsup:
Wont give you any critiques cause I'm at your level myself. In fact it was after reading yours and Weakchilds posts that I finally decided to get into animation.

Since you liked weakchilds blog, you might also want to check this out:
http://placidchaos.com/AM/

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